Junior, Senior Caribbean squash C/ships officially cancelled

In light of the growing concerns surrounding the prevailing presence of the COVID – 19 pandemic, the Caribbean Area Squash Association has taken the decision to cancel the 2020 editions of both the Senior and Junior Caribbean tournaments.

The Junior CASA was scheduled to be held in Bermuda this July while the seniors were set to be in action in Jamaica during August.

“The utmost priority of the Caribbean Area Squash Association is the health and well-being of all of our athletes, officials, coaches and parents of otherwise known as the “CASA family,” the association said in a release.

It added: “As a result, the Caribbean Area Squash Association Executive has made the following decisions [previously mentioned cancellations] with the best interest of our family as relates to the Junior CASA 2020 (Bermuda) and Senior CASA 2020 (Jamaica) due to the unprecedented impact of COVID – 19 on the CASA region.”

The association also announced that the doubles categories at the junior level will be introduced in 2021.

MELBOURNE, (Reuters) - Old rivalries flared as Australian Football League teams returned to limited training yesterday, with Port Adelaide Power fuming at having to share accommodation in a bio-secure “hub” with cross-town rivals and arch-enemies Adelaide Crows.

The South Australian sides, renowned for their ill-tempered and often spiteful contests, are to head north to the Gold Coast for a closed training camp before the top-flight of Australian Rules football resumes after a two-month hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The AFL has booked the sides into the same golf resort, where they will stay for at least the next seven weeks, with travel curbs and quarantine restrictions preventing them from basing themselves in their home state.

Port Adelaide chairman David

Koch told local radio station 5AA that he had asked for separate accommodations to the twice-champion Crows, saying they rubbed his traditionally blue-collar team the wrong way.

“We have enormous respect for the team, for the Crows, absolutely enormous respect, but just don’t like you,” Koch said.

“We’re so different. Why should we have to spend eight weeks in the same hotel?

“We eat Balfour’s meat pies and you eat quiche ... and you guys drink chardonnay. Great respect, but nup. You’re not our type of people.”

The teams’ enmity dates back to disagreements about joining the top flight in the early 1990s.

Port Adelaide’s hopes of joining in 1991 were thwarted during a legal battle brought by state football officials with the backing of local teams.

The same officials hastily formed the Crows to join the AFL in 1991, prompting huge bitterness from Port, the state’s oldest and most successful club. Port, who ended up joining the AFL in 1997, claimed the 2004 title and their rivalry with the Crows has become one of the most intense in the competition.

A day after one of their “Showdown” derbies in 2002, players from both teams engaged in a mass brawl outside an Adelaide pub, triggering a media storm.

“We are arch-enemies ... it doesn’t make a lot of sense to put them together,” Port coach Ken Hinkley told reporters.

“We have these great matches, these great grudge matches, and we’re going to go into a place and be all buddies?

“I’m not sure about that. It just doesn’t quite feel right in Adelaide.”